MP's should be allowed to "job share", the Green Party's leader, Caroline Lucas, said yesterday.

At her party's autumn conference in Birmingham, Ms Lucas said that pairs of candidates should be allowed to stand for election and then share the job if elected.

She added the proposal would allow MPs to retain stronger ties with their constituencies and could result in there being more women MPs. "This is actually incredibly sensible," Ms Lucas told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "How many times have people talked about career politicians, about politicians being out of touch with reality?

"If you had job-sharing MPs, what that would allow you to do is to keep MPs with a foot in their community. They could keep their caring responsibilities, they could keep voluntary work, they could continue part-time in their profession. It would enable far more women to get into politics."

Ms Lucas, who in May became the party's first MP, said the proposal showed the Green Party was at the "cutting edge of new ideas".